Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: 4:50 from Paddington: A Miss Marple Mystery Format: Mass Market Paperback | Verified Purchase I'm not going to give you a synopsis of the book, you can get that anywhere and it doesn't belong in a book review at Amazon. This is an actual review. That said, I really enjoyed this one. Is it old fashioned? Sure. Does that make it boring? Absolutely not. In fact, it makes it all the more interesting. Like all of her books, it's a window into the past. Before modern day forensics there were actual brains that solved crimes. Imagine that! The murder takes place within the first few pages, which is not always the case with Christie books. Most of the time it takes a while before we get there (e.g., Death on the Nile). The pace is near perfect; it doesn't move too fast, nor too slow. Books with too fast a pace become confusing and too slow a pace puts readers to sleep. This one is just enough that you can digest what is going on without being overwhelmed.

Speaking of which, though there are a number of characters each are introduced in such a way that you can absorb who they are without it being shoved in your face. Some books worry too much about details all the way down to their life history. Not for Christie, she gets right to the point. As for the mystery part itself, the ending isn't the typical predictable kind (I can't think of any Christie novels that are). I think most will be fully surprised. It's also worth noting that it isn't cheesy either. Or at least, I don't think so. One thing worth noting, Miss Marple isn't in the book much. This is a surprise to me. I expected her to be the main character, but she was not. She is credited with the mystery, as well she should be, but if you're a fan of hers, be prepared to not see her as often as you would expect. All in all this is an exceptional book! I highly recommend it to anyone who likes film noir in addition to the obvious, that being other mystery type books. 0Comment | 6 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?

Yes No Report abuse Comment Format: Kindle Edition | Verified Purchase Agatha Christie writes mysteries that tax the reader's ability to solve. This is another of those. Every time I began to get strong suspicions about one of the characters, he gets murdered. Even as the list of suspects dwindles down, most readers will be more often wrong that right as to who the murderer is. The reader may not be too well pleased to discover who the murderer is and how he is exposed, but the story itself is a pleasant read without today's emphasis on sex, violence and foul language. It is just a story of a typical upper class English family, some eccentric, some not, some likeable characters, some not, and a nice mixture of greed, devotion and murder. Well, maybe not a typical English family. Format: Kindle Edition | Verified Purchase Poor Dame Agatha! When she started writing her mysteries in the 1920's she had no idea that she would still be cranking them out fifty years later. If she had, she wouldn't have made her two detectives (Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple) so old to start with.

On the other hand, she got to explore the advantages and disadvantages of old age in a way not often found in mystery novels. Although I like Hercule, I must admit that I prefer Christie books and stories that feature that gentle-but-shrewd old lady Miss Jane Marple. I think that they are more autobiographical since Christie was an old style English gentlewoman herself and since she spent a great deal of time as a child with her beloved "Grannie-Auntie." Her observations of this grandparent and her many old lady friends gave the author a deep insight into the wide knowledge of human nature that even an apparently sheltered woman acquires over a long life of dealing with family, friends, servants, and "tradesmen." Those who have the luxury of TIME may see things overlooked by those who are busy with careers and young families. In this book, the plot is driven by the fact that Miss Marple KNOWS that her friend Elspeth McGillicuddy is a woman with honesty, common sense, and NO imagination. Thus while everyone else dismisses Mrs. McGillicuddy's story of having witnessed a murder, Miss Marple simply starts figuring out how and where the body was disposed of and then goes looking for it.

But by this time (mid-1950's) Jane Marple is a very old lady indeed and needs help in the physical task of snooping around. Enter the fascinating character of Lucy Eyelesbarrow, a brilliant young University graduate who deserts her academic field (mathematics) to take up the less prestigious, but more varied and more lucrative field of domestic engineering. For a very large sum, she will move into your house and do anything that needs to be done. She cooks, cleans, cares for children and elderly, and generally takes the burden of day-to-day living completely off your shoulders. There is no woman in the world who wouldn't LOVE to have a Lucy Eyelesbarrow around. However, she only takes temporary assignments and she doesn't come cheap. All Miss Marple has to do is arrange for Lucy to be employed at the estate where she suspects the missing body is hidden and the ultra-efficient domestic diva takes it from there. I'm sure that Dame Agatha enjoyed creating Lucy. She liked studying mathematics herself and once said that she thought she would have been a good math teacher if she hadn't gotten married and become a writer.

I also think that the two delightful teen-aged boys who play a pivotal role in the mystery were probably modeled after her beloved grandson Mathew and his friends. It's a fine, well-plotted story with lots of off-beat characters and it kept me guessing until the end. If you want to commit murder, make damned certain Miss Marple doesn't get wind of it! 0Comment | One person found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Report abuse Comment Format: Kindle Edition | Verified Purchase I've never read much Agatha Christie, and don't really know why. Now that I have a Kindle, I plan to stock up on this author whenever I see a good price ! According to the blurb at the end of the book, Christie is the "most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare." That fact alone is proof that she has a universal appeal. I won't recap much of the plot here, as the product description is sufficient for that purpose (and I certainly would not want to leak any spoilers.) The action commences immediately, and the murder occurs within the first pages of the book.

But, there is no body, and the witness, the doddering spinster Elspeth McGillicuddy, is not considered credible by the authorities. However, she convinces her good friend, Miss Marple, that she did indeed witness the strangulation of a woman in a passing train. Miss Marple does a bit of preliminary sleuthing to determine where the body might have been tossed off the train. Then she hires a competent younger woman, Lucy Eyelesbarrow (her new understudy perhaps?), to take the house manager position at the estate of the Crackenthorpe family. The estate is near the railway line where Miss Marple presumes that the body would have been disposed of. We meet the Crackenthorpe family members, all of whom seem to be waiting for the patriarch to kick off so they can get their hands on their share of the estate. Christie has a fine way of sketching out new characters with a brief, succinct description that provides you just enough information to decide how they fit into the picture that she is painting. None of the Crackenthorpes are particularly admirable, with the exception of Emily who seems to be trying to hold the whole estate together single handedly.

Other murders start to pile up, but since Christie didn't stir up much sympathy towards those victims, their passing is not tragic. A lot of Miss Marple's sleuthing appears to occur offstage, and when she finally swoops in to reveal the true murderer, it all seems a bit forced and hurried. However, up until then I found the mystery quite engaging, and the comings and goings of all the characters kept me turning the pages (or rather hitting the forward button) rapidly. One aspect of Christie's writing that I especially enjoy is the interesting names - Griselda, Eyelesbarrow, McGillicuddy, Wimborne, Quimper, Crackenthorpe, et al. The unique names help you to remember the many characters that inhabit the book. I will certainly be looking for more in the Miss Marple series, and am sure that I am well on my way to becoming an Agatha Christie fan 0Comment | One person found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Report abuse Comment Format: Paperback | Verified Purchase Instead of taking the night train to Memphis the elderly Mrs McGillicuddy took the 450 from Paddington.

Suddenly a train running parallel to her train reveals a murder in progress! A dark headed man is strangling to death a woman. Mrs M. returns home to report the foul deed to the local constables. She then tells the tale to Miss Marple the greatest old lady in all of English murder fiction. The story revolves around the dark secrets of a large old English family the Crackenthorpes who live at Rutherfurd Hall. Among the members of the family are": Old Mr Cracenthorpe a sour man who hates his sons and doesn t want them to reap the material benefits which would accrue to them in his will. Harold-The son who is a prosperous businessman in London Alfred-The black sheep of the family who has been involved in petty crime. Cedrick-An artist who lives abroad but has come home to visit. Miss Marple puts her amateur sleuthing niece Lucy Eyelesbarrow to work doing domestic chores for the family. Lucy discovers the corpse of the murdered woman in an old barn on the estate. Dr. Quimper is the local physician who hankers for Emma ';s hand. She is the only sister of the three living Crackenthorpe sons.

Bryan Eastley is the widower of the other Crackenthorpe daughter who has died. His young son is Alexander. The plot is clear and Christie keeps the number of characters small enough to stay clear in the mind of the reader. This novel features a great ending as Miss Marple solves the crime. A good read for a stormy night or to peruse during a vacation. Christie wrote the novel in 1957. Format: Kindle Edition | Verified Purchase I'm a long-time Agatha Christie fan and it's been a while since I've read one of hers. I enjoy the British pace, which allows a reader to saunter along as opposed to all the American fiction which is hell-bent for the cliff, but in a couple of places, this was a bit too slow for me. Could be that I'm getting older and rushing about, even mentally, isn't as appealing as it once was, but my attention span is shorter than it once was, too. As always, Christie does an awesome job with her characters and I completely enjoyed 4:50 from Paddington. I got to "visit" with my British pals and the lovely countryside, as well as got to meet some new, wonderful characters.

I enjoyed this very much. Going to go purchase another! Format: Kindle Edition | Verified Purchase Even though Miss Marple really has a limited role in this book, I really enjoyed it. Lucy Eylesbarrow was a great character and I do wish we saw more of any in another book - an in particular, I wish we knew who she marries! The setting is pure Agatha Christie, with a country setting, big house, shady family members or people who seem to have their own interests at heart and might be willing to do away with a fellow man (or woman) to get where they want to be. It's not my favorite Agatha Christie, but it's got a good story, interesting people. 0Comment | One person found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Report abuse Comment Format: Kindle Edition | Verified Purchase I always enjoy Agatha Christie mysteries and Miss Marple stories are among my favorites. I love the golden age of British mysteries because they focus more on studies of character and social class and interesting settings, rather than explicit violence or gritty sexuality.

I also appreciate how Agatha Christie really does lay out the clues so the reader can try to determine for themselves who the guilty party is, without feeling like the author cheated by using a "Deus Ex Machina" to solve the crime. While this isn't the very finest example of her work, The 4:50 from Paddington is a great read. 4.50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie audio book | Simply Audiobooks Author Details Overview When Elspeth McGillicuddy is the only witness to a brutal murder - for which not even a body is in evidence - it takes all of Miss Marple's remarkable ingenuity to discover the key to a secret which lies buried within a decaying country house. Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation starring June Whitfield as the deceptively mild Miss Marple. Author Details Author Details Christie, Agatha Agatha Christie was born in Torquay, in the county of Devon, as the daughter of Frederick Alvah Miller, an American with a moderate private income, and Clarissa Miller. Her father died when she was a child. Christie was educated home, where her mother encouraged her to write from very early age.

At sixteen she was sent to school in Paris where she studied singing and piano. Christie was an accomplished pianist but her stage fright and shyness prevented her from pursuing a career in music. In her books Christie seldom referred to music, although her detectives, Poirot and Miss Marple, show interest in opera and Poirot sings in THE A.B.C. MURDERS (1936) a World War I song. When Christie's mother took her to Cairo for a winter, she wrote there a novel. Encouraged by Eden Philpotts, neighbor and friend in Torquay, she devoted herself into writing and had short stories published. In 1914 Christie married Archibald Christie, an officer in the Flying Royal Corps; their daughter, Rosalind, was born in 1919. During World War I she worked in a Red Cross Hospital in Torquayas a hospital dispenser, which gave her a knowledge of poisons. It was to be useful when she started writing mysteries.

Christie's first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, introduced Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective, who appeared in more than 40 books, the last of which was CURTAIN (1975). The Christies bought a house and named it 'Styles' after the first novel. Poirot was an amiably comic character with egg-shaped head, eccentric whose friend Captain Hastings represents the "idiot narrator" - familiar from Sherlock Holmes stories. Poirot draws conclusions from observing people's conduct and from objects around him, creating a chain of facts that finally reveal the murderer. '"He tapped his forehead. "These little gray cells. It is 'up to them' - as you say over here."' Behind the apparently separate details is always a pattern, which only Poirot is able to see. Miss Marple, an elderly spinster, was a typical English character, but when Poirot used logic and rational methods, Marple relied on her feminine sensitivity and empathy to solve crimes. She was born and lived in the village of St. Mary Mead. Both Poirot and Marple did not have any family life, but Poirot also travelled much.

Marple was featured in 17 novels, the first being MURDER AT THE VICARAGE (1930) and the last SLEEPING MURDER (1977). She was reportedly based on the author's own grandmother. Miss Marple made her first screen appearance in 1961 in Murder She Said, starring Margaret Rutherford. It was based on the novel 4:50 FROM PADDINGTON (1957). It was followed by Murder at the Galop (1963), Murder Ahoy (1964), and Murder Most Foul (1964), all directed by George Pollock. The BBC TV series starring Joan Hickson ran 1984-87. Gracie Fields played Miss Marple on television in an adaptation of A Murder Is Announced (1956). Poirot, a former policeman, was forced to flee his country after the German invasion of Belgium in 1914. His assistant Captain Hastings married in the early 1930s and Poirot settled to London's Whitehaven Mansions. Poirot is short - only five feet four inches tall.

He has waxed moustache, egg-shaped head and small feet. Poirot first appeared on screen in Alibi (1931). It was based on THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD (1926), which was partly inspired by Anton Chekhov's novel The Shooting Party (1884-1885). "Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend," Christie wrote in it. With these kind of insights in motives and methods of a murder Christie proved that she could have been a competent teacher at police academies. Peter Ustinov played Poirot in Death on the Nile (1978), Evil under the Sun (1982), and Appointment with Death (1988). David Suchet was Poirot in the UK television series (1989-91). In Murder by the Book (1986) Ian Holm's Poirot investigated his own murder. Tony Randall played Poirot in Frank Tashlin's unorthodox adaptation The Alphabet Murders (1965), in which Anita Ekberg galloped on horseback through Kensington Gardens.

In 56 years Christie wrote 66 detective novels, among the best of which are The Murder of Roger Acroyd, MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1934), DEATH ON THE NILE (1937), and TEN LITTLE NIGGERS (1939). The film version of Ten Little Niggers (1945, US title: And Then There Were None) by the French director RenÃ© Clair, starring Walter Huston and Barry Fitzgerald, is one of the most faithful Christie adaptations. In addition to these mysteries, Christie wrote her autobiography (1977), and several plays, including THE MOUSETRAP, which run more than 30 years continuously in London, and had 8 862 performances at the Ambassadors Theatre in London. The play was based on the short story 'Three Blind Mice', and was produced in 1952 in Nottingham and London. The original company at the Ambassadors Theatre included Richard Attenborough as the detective. Christie's marriage broke up in 1926. Archie Christie, who worked in the City, announced that he had fallen in love with a younger woman, Nancy Neele.

In the same year Christie's beloved mother died. After hearing that her husband had left for Miss Neele's house, Christie disappeared for a time. "I would gladly give Â£500 if I could only hear where my wife is," said Colonel Christie. The story of her real life (love?) adventure in the 1926, when she lived in a Harrowgate hotel under the name Mrs. Neele, was basis for the film Agatha. It was directed in 1978 by Michael Apted. In title role was Vanessa Redgrave. Christie's divorce was finalized in 1928, and two years later she married the archaeologist Max Mallowan. She had met him on her travels in Near East in 1927, and accompanied him on his excavations of sites in Syria and Iraq. Later Christie used these exotic settings in her novels MURDER IN MESOPOTAMIA (1936) and Death on the Nile (1937). Her own archeological adventures were recounted in COME TELL ME HOW YOU LIVE (1946).

Mallowan was Catholic and fourteen years her junior; he became one of the most prominent archaeologist of his generation. Of her marriage the writer told reporters: "An archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have. The older she gets, the more interested he is in her." Mallowan worked in Iraq in the 1950s but returnmed to England, when Christie's health grew weaker. His most famous book was Nimrud and its Remains. Christie's most prolific period began in the late 1920s. During the 1930s he published four non-series mystery novels, fourteen Poirot novels, two Marple novels, two Superintendent Battle books, a book of stories featuring Harley Quin and another featuring Mr. Parken Pyne, an additional Maru Westmacott book, and two original plays. In 1936 she published the first of six psychological romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. After visiting Luxor in 1937, where Christie saw Howard Carter, she wrote the play AKHNATON, which was not published until 1973.

It dramatized the fate of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhnaton, who tried to replace the old gods with monotheism, and Nefertiti, his wife. Curiously, the Finnish writer Mika Waltari, who gained later international fame with his historical novel The Egyptian (1945), wrote also in the same year a play about the same king, Akhnaton, auringosta syntynyt (1937). Christie's play was prodeced in New York as Akhnaton and Nefertiti in 1979 and next year in London. During WW II Christie worked in the dispensary of University College Hospital in London. She also produced twelve completed novels. After the war she continued to write prolifically, also gaining success on the stage and in the cinema. Witness for the Prosecution, for example, was chosen the best foreign play of the 1954-55 season by the New York Drama Critics Circle. Play had opened in London in October 1953 and by December 1954, it was on Broadway.

With Max Mallowan she traveled in 1947 and 1949 to expeditions to Nimrud, the ancient capital of Assyria, and in the Tigris Valley. Among the many film adaptations are Murder on the Orient Express (1974), directed by Sidney Lument and with Albert Finney as Poirot, and Death on the Nile (1978), with Peter Ustinov as Poirot. (see list below) Both films were nostalgic costume dramas. Sidney Lumet wrote in Making Movies (1995) that clothes contribute an enormus amount to the style of the picture. "When Betty Bacall makes her first appearance in Murder on the Orient Express, she's wearing a full-length peach-colored bias-cut velvet dress with a matching hat and egret feather. Jacqueline Bisset, for her first appearance, wears a full-length blue silk dress, a matching jacket with a white ermine collar, and a tiny pillbox hat with a feather... The object was to thrust the audience into a world it never knew - to create a feeling of how glamorous things used to be." Even the small parts in Murder on the Orient Express was filled by famous stars.

Richard Widmark was the victim, Lauren Bacall the American matron, Vanessa Redgrave the lady with the husband, Ingrid Berman the nurse, and John Gielgud the Jeeves character. Also Sean Connery and Anthony Perkins appeared. According to Billy Wilder, Christie herself considered his Witness for the Prosecution the best film adaptation of her work. Wilder rewrote with Harry Kurnitz Christie's dialogue but did not change the clever plot with a surprise ending. In the film Charles Laughton was Sir Wilfrid, a barrister, who defends Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power), an inventor, accused of murdering a middle-aged widowed woman. Marlene Dietrich was his German wife Christie, an actress, eager to testify against her husband. Wilfrid has just recovered from a severe heart attack. The role of his dominating nurse, Miss Plimsoll, was played by Laughton's wife, Elsa Lanchester. In one scene she threatens to resign, if Wilfried doesn't go to sleep. "Splendid," he replies.

"Give her a month's pay and kick her down the stairs." Dietrich's performance had everything - she sang, kissed passionately Tyrone Power, said "I never use smelling salts because they puff up the eyes," and had a double role as a hard Cockney woman and a coldly articulating German woman. She was very disappointed when she did not even earn an Oscar nomination. Christie's characters are usually well-to-do people. Often the comfortable lifestyle of his characters is undermined by financial problems, which lead to murder. Although her villains use very complicated plans, they are not impossible, but are firmly grounded on the everyday reality: "Miss Lyall's hobby in life, as has been said, was the study of human beings.

Unlike most English people, she was capable of speaking to strangers on sight instead of allowing four days to a week to elapse before making the first cautious advance as is the customary British habit." (from 'Trinagle at Rhodes' in Murder in the Mews, 1937) In many stories the reader is fooled to suspect an innocent character, but most innovative Christie was when she revealed the guilty party: it has been the narrator, a group of people, a serial killer who tries to hide an obvious motive for his killing one of the victims, and so forth. Christie's world view was conservative and rational, but there is always a place for accidents: "'...Does it not strike you that the easiest way of removing someone you want to remove from your path is to take advantage of accident? Accidents are happening all the time. And sometimes - Hastings - they can be helped to happen!'" (from Dumb Witness, 1937). Christie gives always a logical explanation for crimes, but society is not blamed. Murder is not a sign of degeneration of middle-class values. After the crime is solved, life continues happily.

Although Christie's writing career spanned over six decades, she was conscious of social change without fixating on the period between the two World Wars. "When I reread those first books," she said in 1966, "I'm amazed at the number of servants drifting around. And nobody is really doing any work, they're always having tea on the lawn." However, she did not like editing her own text and was even reluctant to change the spelling unless a word has actually been misspelt. By 1955 Christie had become a limited company, Agatha Christie Ltd, which was acquired in the late 1960s by Booker Books. It had already acquired Ian Fleming. In 1967 Christie became president of the British Detection Club, and in 1971 she was made a Dame of the British Empire. Christie died on January 12, 1976 in Wallingford, Oxforshire. Mallowan died two years later, but he had married after Christie's death an old family friend. With over one hundred novels and over one hundred translations into foreign languages, Christie was by the time of her death the best-selling English novelist of all time.

As Margery Allingham said: Christie has "entertained more people for more hours at time that any other writer of her generation." The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie - Agatha Christie Synopsis The Murder at the Vicarage When the thoroughly unpleasant Lucius Protheroe is found dead, there is no shortage of suspects with a motive for murder ... More about this story The Murder at the Vicarage is one of Agatha Christie’s most popular books. It was the first of her mysteries to be published (in 1930) as part of her publisher Collins’ new Crime Club series and the first novel to feature Miss Marple. Not a book club exactly, The Crime Club was a series of mystery titles published and promoted under the name. Not only are we formally introduced to the village of St Mary Mead and the "Parish cats" otherwise known as Miss Marple and her friends, but several other recurring characters including the vicar and his wife, Leonard and Griselda Clement, who also appeared in The Body in the Library (1942) and 4.50 from Paddington (1957). Dorothy L Sayers was particularly complimentary of this novel.

"Dear old Tabbies" she wrote to Christie, "are the only possible right kind of female detective and Miss M is lovely ... I think this is the best you have done - almost". The novel was adapted for the screen, first with Joan Hickson in 1986 and again in 2004 with Geraldine McEwan in the starring role. BBC Radio 4 dramatised the story in 2003 with June Whitfield and the graphic novel adaptation was first published in France in 2005 under the title L'Affaire Protheroe. Buy The Murder at the Vicarage ⌺Read Collins Agatha Christie ELT Readers: 4.50 From Paddington: B2 : Agatha Christie : 9780007451722 Collins Agatha Christie ELT Readers US$7.30 US$12.99 You save US$5.69 Free delivery worldwide Add to basket Add to wishlist Description Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners. Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language.

Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully adapted versions are shorter with the language targeted at upper-intermediate learners (CEF level B2). Each reader includes: * A CD with a reading of the adapted story * Helpful notes on characters * Cultural and historical notes relevant to the plot * A glossary of the more difficult words A woman is murdered on a train. When Miss Marple telephones her friend Lucy Eyelesbarrow and asks her to go undercover to investigate, Lucy quickly accepts the challenge! Who is the dead woman? What was the motive for her murder? And why was the body thrown from the train and later hidden at Rutherford Hall? When a second murder takes place, everyone at Rutherford Hall seems in danger, so Miss Marple sets a trap to catch the murderer. show more Product details Mixed media product | 128 pages Dimensions 130 x 194 x 12mm | 81.65g Publication date Miss Marple series by Agatha Christie Miss Marple series 43 works, 13 primary works Mystery series in order of publication. Miss Marple is introduced in The Murder at the Vicarage but the books can be read in any order.

Mixed short story collections are included if some are Marple, often have horror, supernatural, maybe detective Poirot, Pyne, or Quin. Note that "Nemesis" should be read AFTER "A Caribbean Holiday" Best Miss Marple Books | List of Agatha Christies's Miss Marple Books Ranked The Best Miss Marple Books 274 votes 70 voters 4.5k views 23 items tags f t p @ List Criteria: Books or short story collections featuring the character Miss Marple, written by Agatha Christie The absolute best book from Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series, ranked as the best by book lovers everywhere. This list has the most popular Miss Marple books, featuring the plucky detective, and includes the date each book was published. What are the absolute best Miss Marple mysteries of all time? Agatha Christie is undoubtedly one of the best crime authors of all time. Her stories have been loved by millions and she was so iconic, that in order to publish other types of novels, she wrote under a pen name . One of her most popular series is the Miss Marple series, which has been turned into many films as well.

This list features the best Miss Marple books from the popular mystery series . The titles are listed based on the number of votes cast for each one, and your votes can help determine the ranking! Some of these popular Miss Marple books include The Thirteen Problems, 4.50 from Paddington, The Moving Finger, Murder at the Vicarage, and They Do it With Mirrors. Vote up the best Miss Marple books and short stories on the list below or add the ones you love if they aren't already on the list. List Photo: user uploaded image 1 ReRank 2 See list ranked by Z G Options B Comments & Embed 2rerank list 1 4:50 from Paddington: A Miss Marple Mystery by Agatha Christie audio book | Simply Audiobooks Author Details Christie, Agatha Agatha Christie was born in Torquay, in the county of Devon, as the daughter of Frederick Alvah Miller, an American with a moderate private income, and Clarissa Miller. Her father died when she was a child. Christie was educated home, where her mother encouraged her to write from very early age. At sixteen she was sent to school in Paris where she studied singing and piano.

Christie was an accomplished pianist but her stage fright and shyness prevented her from pursuing a career in music. In her books Christie seldom referred to music, although her detectives, Poirot and Miss Marple, show interest in opera and Poirot sings in THE A.B.C. MURDERS (1936) a World War I song. When Christie's mother took her to Cairo for a winter, she wrote there a novel. Encouraged by Eden Philpotts, neighbor and friend in Torquay, she devoted herself into writing and had short stories published. In 1914 Christie married Archibald Christie, an officer in the Flying Royal Corps; their daughter, Rosalind, was born in 1919. During World War I she worked in a Red Cross Hospital in Torquayas a hospital dispenser, which gave her a knowledge of poisons. It was to be useful when she started writing mysteries. Christie's first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, introduced Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective, who appeared in more than 40 books, the last of which was CURTAIN (1975).

The Christies bought a house and named it 'Styles' after the first novel. Poirot was an amiably comic character with egg-shaped head, eccentric whose friend Captain Hastings represents the "idiot narrator" - familiar from Sherlock Holmes stories. Poirot draws conclusions from observing people's conduct and from objects around him, creating a chain of facts that finally reveal the murderer. '"He tapped his forehead. "These little gray cells. It is 'up to them' - as you say over here."' Behind the apparently separate details is always a pattern, which only Poirot is able to see. Miss Marple, an elderly spinster, was a typical English character, but when Poirot used logic and rational methods, Marple relied on her feminine sensitivity and empathy to solve crimes. She was born and lived in the village of St. Mary Mead. Both Poirot and Marple did not have any family life, but Poirot also travelled much. Marple was featured in 17 novels, the first being MURDER AT THE VICARAGE (1930) and the last SLEEPING MURDER (1977). She was reportedly based on the author's own grandmother.

Miss Marple made her first screen appearance in 1961 in Murder She Said, starring Margaret Rutherford. It was based on the novel 4:50 FROM PADDINGTON (1957). It was followed by Murder at the Galop (1963), Murder Ahoy (1964), and Murder Most Foul (1964), all directed by George Pollock. The BBC TV series starring Joan Hickson ran 1984-87. Gracie Fields played Miss Marple on television in an adaptation of A Murder Is Announced (1956). Poirot, a former policeman, was forced to flee his country after the German invasion of Belgium in 1914. His assistant Captain Hastings married in the early 1930s and Poirot settled to London's Whitehaven Mansions. Poirot is short - only five feet four inches tall. He has waxed moustache, egg-shaped head and small feet. Poirot first appeared on screen in Alibi (1931).

It was based on THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD (1926), which was partly inspired by Anton Chekhov's novel The Shooting Party (1884-1885). "Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend," Christie wrote in it. With these kind of insights in motives and methods of a murder Christie proved that she could have been a competent teacher at police academies. Peter Ustinov played Poirot in Death on the Nile (1978), Evil under the Sun (1982), and Appointment with Death (1988). David Suchet was Poirot in the UK television series (1989-91). In Murder by the Book (1986) Ian Holm's Poirot investigated his own murder. Tony Randall played Poirot in Frank Tashlin's unorthodox adaptation The Alphabet Murders (1965), in which Anita Ekberg galloped on horseback through Kensington Gardens.

In 56 years Christie wrote 66 detective novels, among the best of which are The Murder of Roger Acroyd, MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1934), DEATH ON THE NILE (1937), and TEN LITTLE NIGGERS (1939). The film version of Ten Little Niggers (1945, US title: And Then There Were None) by the French director RenÃ© Clair, starring Walter Huston and Barry Fitzgerald, is one of the most faithful Christie adaptations. In addition to these mysteries, Christie wrote her autobiography (1977), and several plays, including THE MOUSETRAP, which run more than 30 years continuously in London, and had 8 862 performances at the Ambassadors Theatre in London. The play was based on the short story 'Three Blind Mice', and was produced in 1952 in Nottingham and London. The original company at the Ambassadors Theatre included Richard Attenborough as the detective. Christie's marriage broke up in 1926. Archie Christie, who worked in the City, announced that he had fallen in love with a younger woman, Nancy Neele.

In the same year Christie's beloved mother died. After hearing that her husband had left for Miss Neele's house, Christie disappeared for a time. "I would gladly give Â£500 if I could only hear where my wife is," said Colonel Christie. The story of her real life (love?) adventure in the 1926, when she lived in a Harrowgate hotel under the name Mrs. Neele, was basis for the film Agatha. It was directed in 1978 by Michael Apted. In title role was Vanessa Redgrave. Christie's divorce was finalized in 1928, and two years later she married the archaeologist Max Mallowan. She had met him on her travels in Near East in 1927, and accompanied him on his excavations of sites in Syria and Iraq. Later Christie used these exotic settings in her novels MURDER IN MESOPOTAMIA (1936) and Death on the Nile (1937). Her own archeological adventures were recounted in COME TELL ME HOW YOU LIVE (1946).

Mallowan was Catholic and fourteen years her junior; he became one of the most prominent archaeologist of his generation. Of her marriage the writer told reporters: "An archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have. The older she gets, the more interested he is in her." Mallowan worked in Iraq in the 1950s but returnmed to England, when Christie's health grew weaker. His most famous book was Nimrud and its Remains. Christie's most prolific period began in the late 1920s. During the 1930s he published four non-series mystery novels, fourteen Poirot novels, two Marple novels, two Superintendent Battle books, a book of stories featuring Harley Quin and another featuring Mr. Parken Pyne, an additional Maru Westmacott book, and two original plays. In 1936 she published the first of six psychological romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. After visiting Luxor in 1937, where Christie saw Howard Carter, she wrote the play AKHNATON, which was not published until 1973.

It dramatized the fate of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhnaton, who tried to replace the old gods with monotheism, and Nefertiti, his wife. Curiously, the Finnish writer Mika Waltari, who gained later international fame with his historical novel The Egyptian (1945), wrote also in the same year a play about the same king, Akhnaton, auringosta syntynyt (1937). Christie's play was prodeced in New York as Akhnaton and Nefertiti in 1979 and next year in London. During WW II Christie worked in the dispensary of University College Hospital in London. She also produced twelve completed novels. After the war she continued to write prolifically, also gaining success on the stage and in the cinema. Witness for the Prosecution, for example, was chosen the best foreign play of the 1954-55 season by the New York Drama Critics Circle. Play had opened in London in October 1953 and by December 1954, it was on Broadway.

With Max Mallowan she traveled in 1947 and 1949 to expeditions to Nimrud, the ancient capital of Assyria, and in the Tigris Valley. Among the many film adaptations are Murder on the Orient Express (1974), directed by Sidney Lument and with Albert Finney as Poirot, and Death on the Nile (1978), with Peter Ustinov as Poirot. (see list below) Both films were nostalgic costume dramas. Sidney Lumet wrote in Making Movies (1995) that clothes contribute an enormus amount to the style of the picture. "When Betty Bacall makes her first appearance in Murder on the Orient Express, she's wearing a full-length peach-colored bias-cut velvet dress with a matching hat and egret feather. Jacqueline Bisset, for her first appearance, wears a full-length blue silk dress, a matching jacket with a white ermine collar, and a tiny pillbox hat with a feather... The object was to thrust the audience into a world it never knew - to create a feeling of how glamorous things used to be." Even the small parts in Murder on the Orient Express was filled by famous stars.

Richard Widmark was the victim, Lauren Bacall the American matron, Vanessa Redgrave the lady with the husband, Ingrid Berman the nurse, and John Gielgud the Jeeves character. Also Sean Connery and Anthony Perkins appeared. According to Billy Wilder, Christie herself considered his Witness for the Prosecution the best film adaptation of her work. Wilder rewrote with Harry Kurnitz Christie's dialogue but did not change the clever plot with a surprise ending. In the film Charles Laughton was Sir Wilfrid, a barrister, who defends Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power), an inventor, accused of murdering a middle-aged widowed woman. Marlene Dietrich was his German wife Christie, an actress, eager to testify against her husband. Wilfrid has just recovered from a severe heart attack. The role of his dominating nurse, Miss Plimsoll, was played by Laughton's wife, Elsa Lanchester. In one scene she threatens to resign, if Wilfried doesn't go to sleep. "Splendid," he replies.

"Give her a month's pay and kick her down the stairs." Dietrich's performance had everything - she sang, kissed passionately Tyrone Power, said "I never use smelling salts because they puff up the eyes," and had a double role as a hard Cockney woman and a coldly articulating German woman. She was very disappointed when she did not even earn an Oscar nomination. Christie's characters are usually well-to-do people. Often the comfortable lifestyle of his characters is undermined by financial problems, which lead to murder. Although her villains use very complicated plans, they are not impossible, but are firmly grounded on the everyday reality: "Miss Lyall's hobby in life, as has been said, was the study of human beings.

Unlike most English people, she was capable of speaking to strangers on sight instead of allowing four days to a week to elapse before making the first cautious advance as is the customary British habit." (from 'Trinagle at Rhodes' in Murder in the Mews, 1937) In many stories the reader is fooled to suspect an innocent character, but most innovative Christie was when she revealed the guilty party: it has been the narrator, a group of people, a serial killer who tries to hide an obvious motive for his killing one of the victims, and so forth. Christie's world view was conservative and rational, but there is always a place for accidents: "'...Does it not strike you that the easiest way of removing someone you want to remove from your path is to take advantage of accident? Accidents are happening all the time. And sometimes - Hastings - they can be helped to happen!'" (from Dumb Witness, 1937). Christie gives always a logical explanation for crimes, but society is not blamed. Murder is not a sign of degeneration of middle-class values. After the crime is solved, life continues happily.

Although Christie's writing career spanned over six decades, she was conscious of social change without fixating on the period between the two World Wars. "When I reread those first books," she said in 1966, "I'm amazed at the number of servants drifting around. And nobody is really doing any work, they're always having tea on the lawn." However, she did not like editing her own text and was even reluctant to change the spelling unless a word has actually been misspelt. By 1955 Christie had become a limited company, Agatha Christie Ltd, which was acquired in the late 1960s by Booker Books. It had already acquired Ian Fleming. In 1967 Christie became president of the British Detection Club, and in 1971 she was made a Dame of the British Empire. Christie died on January 12, 1976 in Wallingford, Oxforshire. Mallowan died two years later, but he had married after Christie's death an old family friend. With over one hundred novels and over one hundred translations into foreign languages, Christie was by the time of her death the best-selling English novelist of all time.

As Margery Allingham said: Christie has "entertained more people for more hours at time that any other writer of her generation." The Murder at the Vicarage : Agatha Christie : 9780007208425 The Murder at the Vicarage Hardback US$11.73 US$15.98 You save US$4.25 Free delivery worldwide Add to basket Add to wishlist Description A facsimile first edition hardback of the Miss Marple books, published to mark the 75th anniversary of her first appearance and to celebrate her new-found success on television. When The Murder at the Vicarage was published in October 1930, little did the literary world realise that Agatha Christie, already famous for her early Poirot titles, was introducing a character who would become the best-loved female sleuth of all time. The 14 Marple books would appear at intervals over the next 49 years, with Miss Marple's Final Cases published in 1979, three years after Agatha's death.

To mark the 75th anniversary of Miss Marple's first appearance, and to celebrate her renewed fortunes as a primetime television star, this collection of facsimile first editions will be the perfect way to enjoy these books in their original form - 12 novels and two short story collections. Reproducing the original typesetting and formats from the first editions from the Christie family's own archive copies, these books sport the original covers which have been painstakingly restored from the best available copies, reflecting five decades of iconic cover design. show more Product details 134 x 196 x 26mm | 358.34g Publication date

Question: '4.50 From Paddington' and 'Murder At The Vicarage' are novels featuring which detective?
Answer: 'MISS MARPLE'